Searching for The Monolith
Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 12:13 am
This evening we made our 2nd attempt to locate "the Monolith" by diving in Cove 1. We splashed a 3 person team, me Rich_C and Adron_M.
We descended down the main buoy in the center of the cove, tied off a reel, and headed down slope on a bearing of 35 degrees.
At about 75fsw we found what appeared to be the remains of someone else's line; not cave line but something wiry & metallic buried in the silt. It headed in the same direction as our compass bearing, so we followed it.
At 90fsw, we found a large metallic structure; it was very rusted, but I could still make out some features that looked like tank cylinders on the north side. The entire thing is about 10 feet tall. Since this item was at roughly the depth & bearing we had been told to expect "the Monolith" we declared victory, tied off the line, and explored for about 10 minutes before our dive plan called for a turnaround and ascent.
We were doing so well too -- turned the dive per plan, had excellent team cohesion through the whole dive, made 2 good, tight tie-offs on the way down (not a lot to tie off on since it's a featureless mud bottom...) I was running the reel and monitoring the dive time & depth. I called for a 1 minute deep stop at 50fsw, and before you knew it - KNOT - line is drifting as I'm trying to untangle, I've got a diver swimming through the loose line, etc. Yuck. Ended up rolling the last 25 feet of line up by hand, making a nice big rats-nest, and untangling it post-dive.
Team issues at the deep stop, and unfortunately not diving with Penelopy due to equipment failure at the last instant aside, I think we chalk this one up as a "success". I'd be happy to do this dive again.
Ryan
We descended down the main buoy in the center of the cove, tied off a reel, and headed down slope on a bearing of 35 degrees.
At about 75fsw we found what appeared to be the remains of someone else's line; not cave line but something wiry & metallic buried in the silt. It headed in the same direction as our compass bearing, so we followed it.
At 90fsw, we found a large metallic structure; it was very rusted, but I could still make out some features that looked like tank cylinders on the north side. The entire thing is about 10 feet tall. Since this item was at roughly the depth & bearing we had been told to expect "the Monolith" we declared victory, tied off the line, and explored for about 10 minutes before our dive plan called for a turnaround and ascent.
We were doing so well too -- turned the dive per plan, had excellent team cohesion through the whole dive, made 2 good, tight tie-offs on the way down (not a lot to tie off on since it's a featureless mud bottom...) I was running the reel and monitoring the dive time & depth. I called for a 1 minute deep stop at 50fsw, and before you knew it - KNOT - line is drifting as I'm trying to untangle, I've got a diver swimming through the loose line, etc. Yuck. Ended up rolling the last 25 feet of line up by hand, making a nice big rats-nest, and untangling it post-dive.
Team issues at the deep stop, and unfortunately not diving with Penelopy due to equipment failure at the last instant aside, I think we chalk this one up as a "success". I'd be happy to do this dive again.
Ryan
